FSFE concerned about Novell patent sale

Published: 2011-01-13

Free Software Foundation Europe has written to the
German competition authorities in order to share its concerns about
the sale of Novell's patents to a consortium called CPTN, made up of
Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and EMC.

"If the sale of Novell’s patents to CPTN is allowed to go ahead,
this will significantly increase the legal threat level for Free
Software", says FSFE's President Karsten Gerloff in an article
on the issue.

On December 22, 2010, FSFE wrote to the German competition
authorities with a detailed
explanation of the negative effect that the acquisition of
Novell's patents by CPTN would have for competition in the software
market.